Creative Revision Project
For our third project of the semester in my Composition 2 class we were asked to creatively revise one of our previous projects, changing both the mode and genre. I chose to revise Project 2, which was a video interview on the smithing community, into a educational comic book on what to expect for your first project.
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This was both easy and difficult for me. It was easy in the sense that I have not only lived through this experience, but also assisted many others in their first projects. It was difficult because I did not have time to draw all of the images by hand, and instead had to:
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1. Find the time to take the pictures
2. Find a software that will convert photos to comic book pictures
3. Combine everything together and add in text
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These three steps took time, effort, and attention to detail in order to make sure all of the information was there and flowed in a way that made sense.
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Rhetorical Situation
Blacksmithing First Project Expectations
In this comic I am explaining what to expect during your first class, from the amount of time it takes, safety concerns, and how much work can go into creating something by hand. The long days, specific ways to hammer and heat of the shop can be hard, but all in all you walk away with having created something that was previously only in your mind. By doing this in a comic it makes it easy for someone to both see and read what it is like in class. This is more understandable than trying to create a novel, as in a comic book you are able to see what is going on not just read and imagine it. I want people to know to wear fire safe clothes, come prepared, and that this kind of work does have a lot of work involved. Even though there is a lot of work, you can still feel safe, excited, and involved in creating something that is unique to you.​
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Text/Communication: Speaking to describe motions, actions, level of force and hit placement
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Author: For this project the author is a third person narrator with speech between the two participants (teacher and student)
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Audience: The intended audience is students who are interested in learning about blacksmithing, and smithing community members who are looking to see a funny introduction comic.
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Purposes: A educational comic to give new students an idea of what to expect in their first project as a smith.
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Setting: In the smithing shop.
Reflection
Upon thinking back on the process of creating this short comic I found that I actually really enjoyed the creation process. I first got to go to one of my favorite places, do one of my favorite activities, catch good photos of me doing what I love, and that was all just collecting the photos to get started. Once I had all the photos together (thank you RO a.k.a 'Head Shop Monkey' for taking photos), I was able to put the images first through a cartoonizer software, save the cartoonized photos, organize them into a visual story. I finished everything up in Photopea, using it's layering system to organize the photos, create boxes around them, and add in different styles of text boxes. The hardest part was a solid draw between choosing the cartoon style, and creating the thought bubble speech boxes (many small circles). All in all I am very happy with how the project came out and I hope that it illustrates what it is like in the shop for anyone who is interested in taking classes.